What can you do? He's in love
by LittleFairyAV
Summary: According to Jane Austen, "General incivility is the very essence of love." Translation: when you're in love with someone, you tend to be kind of a jerk to everyone else. Five times Jim's love for Pam leads him to act with incivility, to say the least.


I don't own The Office, Jim and Pam, or Pride and Prejudice (although I think the last one is public domain by now, anyways)

Spoilers from Season 2 'Booze Cruise' to Season 5 'Company Picnic'

R&R please!

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"**I never saw a more promising inclination; he was growing quite inattentive to other people, and wholly engrossed by her.** Every time they met, it was more decided and remarkable. At his own ball he offended two or three young ladies, by not asking them to dance; and I spoke to him twice myself, without receiving an answer. Could there be finer symptoms? **Is not general incivility the very essence of love?"**

**- Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen**

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In some small corner of his mind, Jim knew that breaking up with this perfectly nice, pretty, harmless girl on a tiny cruise boat at 12:30 in the morning in the center of a half-frozen Pennsylvania lake was a terrible, terrible thing to do. It wasn't Katie's fault that every time he looked at _them_ dancing together – Pam's face lit up with the kind of happiness he had once thought only he could give her, Roy's satisfied, idiotic smirk – he felt like he had been punched in the gut. (And yet he couldn't stop staring; it was as if he had given up on fighting the agony or protecting himself from it; or maybe it was just that some part of him always preferred to be watching Pam, even when it felt like it would kill him.)It wasn't Katie's fault that the realization that he had lost his one chance, that the girl he loved was lost to him forever, made him want to throw up, cry, hit something, or jump off the side of the boat and drown, all at the same time. It wasn't her fault that everything had gone so horribly wrong.

And yet, when Katie asked him if they would ever be like the couple on the other side of the glass, he didn't even bother to look at her. It wasn't her fault, but he couldn't help blaming her anyway – blaming her for being so damn _enthusiastic _about the whole thing, clapping and cheering and forcing him to give a toast for the happy couple when he really just wanted to scream. And then, of course he blamed her simply for her not-being-Pam, as unfair to her as _that_ was. So he answered her with an unequivocal 'No,' so sharp and shattering that anyone could hear the ice that had formed around his heart. Not even her angry shouting reply could free him from the numbness, the not-caring, that gripped him.

Pam hurt him, so he hurt Katie. He didn't even want to think about how messed up that was.

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You know how, in middle school, the boys would find some poor little dorky kid and make fun of him, just to get the attention of some girl?

Sometimes, Jim feels like he's in middle school.

He knew it was horrible to act like that. He should have grown out of that phase decades ago. He thought he had, until he came to work here. But he had quickly figured out that when the girl you are in love with is engaged to another man, you tend to get a little desperate. Any strategy that makes her smile at you, allows you to secretly revel in the feeling of making her laugh, gives you an excuse to speak to her in whispered conversations at her desk; that's a strategy you've got to cling to. Because you've got to keep up hope that one day she'll realize that she wants to be with someone who will make her happy. Jim thinks he makes her happy; he wants to more than anything, even if his only opportunity so far has been from tormenting an unlucky co-worker. So no matter how upset Dwight gets, no matter how much Jim's conscience nags at him, he still keeps putting the stapler in the Jello and moving the desk over an inch every time Dwight goes to the bathroom. He can't help it. He's addicted to the sound of giggles coming from the reception desk, and he isn't going to give that up, no matter whom it hurts.

Of course, then he remembers how Dwight stole his Christmas gift to Pam so that he could stick it up his nose, and Jim decides that the guy definitely deserves it.

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It's four o' clock in Manhattan, and the last rays of blinding yellow afternoon sun are sweeping across the long gravel sidewalks of Washington Square Park, and making the jetstreams of water leaping from the center of the park fountain glimmer in the light. A woman with straight black hair and caramel skin, wearing a crisp grey jacket, pencil skirt, and sensible business-dress pumps, is sitting on the bench in front of the fountain, and she is crying. She is hunched over and she covers her face with her hands so that no one sees that her mascara has begun to run. A few feet away, a man with disheveled brown hair is leaning awkwardly against the edge of the fountain, uncomfortably fiddling with his tie or his collar or his car keys in his pocket. Every time a new sob escapes from her mouth, he flinches slightly, and it's clear he has no idea what to say.

"Karen, I'm so sorr…" he begins to apologize again, but she cuts him off, lifting her face and peering at him through a curtain of disheveled hair.

"You've said enough, Jim. I think we both know I was nothing more than a temporary replacement for you. I'm not going to forgive you, Ok? No matter how many times you pretend to apologize."

"I don't like seeing you hurt, Karen. I didn't mean to hurt you."

"Oh, so you're just an accidental asshole, not an on-purpose one? Good for you, Jim."

He flinches again and takes a deep breath. "What do you want me to do, Karen?" he asks, as calmly as he can manage.

"Leave. Go back to the little Scranton life and the stupid little unrequited crush you dumped me for. We're done."

He nods and places a hand on her shoulder, which she shrugs off, and so he walks away with his hands in his pockets, and all he can feel is guilty relief, quickly replaced by nervous anticipation, as he thinks about the fact that everything he's ever wanted is a two-hour car ride and one all-important question away.

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Jim's heart was pounding from excitement and happiness and more than a little longing as they broke from the first of many long kisses, the kisses that were supposed to make up for the week they had spent in different cities two hours away. He looked down at her and smiled slightly, tracing his hand over her cheek, and whispered, "I _missed _you." She smiled and nodded, gently grabbing his collar and pulling him closer with a playful look on her face. He thought about the fact that he was, at this very moment, carrying her engagement ring in his back pocket.

He really had missed her; that was an understatement. He thought about her all the time, had to restrain himself from calling her too much, since the feeling that he couldn't bear to go another second without hearing her voice came to torture him almost every half-hour. Everyone in the office back in Scranton could tell, by his mood, approximately how long it had been since he had last gotten a text from her. And he was having trouble sleeping, just like he had back when he was at Stamford; he usually stayed up until midnight or later reading or watching bad T.V. shows, trying desperately to forget the way that being without her for even one night made him anxious, made the painful memories of the days when he thought he'd lost her resurface. He was so glad to have her in his life, he thought, as he wrapped his arms around her and buried his face in her hair. At that moment, he realized that he couldn't wait any longer. He didn't want to spend one more night without her unless he had the absolute knowledge that she would be his forever. He kissed her cheek and reached into his back pocket.

Someone rapped loudly and impatiently on the door of Pam's dorm room.

"Ms. Beesly!" he heard a girl cry.

Pam groaned, "Sorry Jim."

Bewildered and frustrated, he watched her disentangle himself from his embrace and hurry to the door, which, when she opened it, revealed a sobbing 19 year old girl.

"Ms. Beesly, I can't deal with it anymore! She has gone over the line this time! I don't know what to do!" the girl whined miserably.

"Yeah, ok Audrey, one sec," Pam said, with a demeanor so calm that, if Jim hadn't been studying this woman's every expression for more than five years, he wouldn't have been able to see the annoyance in her face. As it was, he saw it, and he felt just as unhappy about this interruption. "I have to take care of this, Jim," Pam said. "Can you go over to the student commons for a while? They have a TV, I think. I think she's going to want some privacy. I'm really sorry."

"Sure," he sighed, extremely disappointed.

"Thanks, Jim. See you in a bit," she said, with a tired smile. She gave him a kiss that should have lasted twice as long, and said, "Come on in, Audrey."

As he walked out Pam's door and this Audrey person walked in, he was suddenly filled with an unwarranted and ungovernable degree of resentment against the girl who had interrupted his marriage proposal and was now taking away the little time he had with Pam after not seeing her for a week. So as he passed her in the doorway and they happened to make eye contact, he glared at her with an amount of ferocity that, only a few moments later, after taking a few deep breaths, he would be embarrassed by. She flinched away and seemed to start crying even harder, and before he was out of earshot, he heard her mumble to Pam, "Ms. Beesly, why is your boyfriend mad at me?"

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"Jim, you've got to – " Dwight started to say into his cell phone. His genius plan for distracting the other team had worked for a while, but they had eventually started to catch on, and if Jim and Pam didn't return soon, all would be lost.

Jim's thoughts, his frantic heartbeat, drowned out Dwight's words, and he interrupted in the middle of Dwight's sentence without realizing it.

"Hey Dwight. Send in the subs!" Jim said, in a voice that sounded giddy and out of breath.

"But – " Dwight began to interject. Jim hung up on him before he got the chance. He looked at the camera and tried to explain what had happened to make the Dunder Mifflin Company Volleyball Game the least of his concerns, but all he could manage was a wild, uncontrollable grin and an inarticulate "oh…" and then he just ran back into Pam's arms, because the joy and shock inside him was more than he could handle on his own. Let corporate win the game; let Dwight resent them both for the rest of the summer; Pam was pregnant with their baby. Nothing was more important than that fact.

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_Read and Review! and let me know if you have any other suggestions for one-shots on this theme._


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